


still nobody home.

by riotherself



Category: Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-23 08:21:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2540894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riotherself/pseuds/riotherself
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>post black widow 8, bucky wants to tell natasha what he really meant by "be careful, stay warm"</p>
            </blockquote>





	still nobody home.

**Author's Note:**

> LET ME TELL YOU HOW ANGRY I AM I HAD TO TAG TASHA AS "NATASHA ROMANOV" BECAUSE THAT'S INCREDIBLY INCORRECT BUT WHATEVER WHATEVER WHATEVER  
> anyway this is really sad have fun crying i know i did

Bucky doesn’t like phones. He’s never liked phones. He didn’t use them in the 30’s and he certainly hadn’t used them in recent times. He has a S.H.I.E.L.D. issued phone, he doesn’t really consider it his, strictly for work communications. He doesn’t make personal calls, he isn’t the type. He prefers to see people in person, see their facial expressions, hear their voice, undistorted by a phone line.

He turns the phone over in his hands a few times. He saw her, not even that long ago. Barely a day, really. That doesn’t change the feeling in his stomach. She didn’t remember him. Not the way she should have. She called him Winter Soldier. He almost called her Natasha. He didn’t have that right anymore. He doesn’t care if that feels right coming off his tongue, he knows it wouldn’t sound right to her ear. He knows how that feels, too.

_“Who the hell is Bucky?”_

He almost laughs when he thinks about it. Nobody understood him like Natasha understood him. Even brainwashed, she understands him better than anyone. He wonders if this is how Steve felt.

She really didn’t know him. She said she was impressed. He had almost slipped, almost. 

He turns the phone over again, like he’s contemplating its existence. She’s in one of her safehouses, God knows which one. A call from a S.H.I.E.L.D. phone wouldn’t raise alarm. She’d probably even answer.

His stomach drops. He doesn’t know if that’s what he wants or not. It wouldn’t be the same as hearing her directly and he survived that, surely he can handle a phone call. 

**What would you say? Oh, hi, Natasha, it’s me, Buck---James Barnes. Winter Soldier. Your ex-lover you don’t remember for a lot of bullshit and convoluted reasons I don’t feel like going into right now. I just wanted to say I love you and I’m sorry and I miss you. That’s what I meant when I said ‘stay warm, be careful’.**

“Barnes, you’ve officially lost it,” he mutters under his breath. He’s not sure if that’s the anticipated response from Natasha or just him coming to terms with it. 

Maybe he’ll stay low-key, lie about a mission or some sort of help he needs from her. 

**That’s a shit plan and you know it. Lying to Natasha is a fool’s errand.**

He doesn’t give a shit at this point, he’s just going to say whatever comes to his mind. He dials and feels his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth. He wonders if anyone’s heart has ever pounded this hard before. His entire personage hurts and he’s too concentrated on pressing send to notice the table cracking under the grip of his metal arm.

He can’t do it. He can’t press send. Her number is sitting there, on the screen, ready to call and he’s beyond nauseous. How the fuck is he supposed to make it through a conversation?

**Okay, you can do this. You’re a super spy. You’re an assassin. You’ve been Captain America. This is nothing. You can do it.**

He spends a few moments psyching himself up and for less than one second, he feels like he could do it. But that is not long enough to make him press the daunting little green SEND button.

He sits there and feels like an idiot with the phone in his hand and his thumb hovering over it. Maybe he can trick himself into pushing the button.

He rests his thumb on the button, harmless enough. There is a hysterical amount of strength and effort involved in him forcing himself into pushing the button. He almost chokes as he watches the screen go from a display of the number to “calling…”. In a panic, he furiously presses the red END button, flings the phone out of his hand and watches it skitter across the top of the table.

His shoulders heave as he breathes for the first time in what feels like hours. The phone sits across the table and it feels like it’s staring at him. He thinks about reaching for the phone to try the process all over again, but suddenly the table feels a million miles long.

He gets up and walks to the other end of the table, trying to shake the sense of dread that just keeps building in his stomach. This is too much. He’s not a puker, but all of this fucking stress over a stupid fucking phone call is about to make him one. The phone’s back in his hands and he doesn’t really know how it got there. It’s like a nuclear bomb in his palm, heavier than he remembers it being three minutes ago and much hotter, and he’s not sure how to disarm it. He can leave the notion be, set down the phone, go clean his guns, take a shower, anything else, but he knows every moment is going to be spent thinking about this stupid piece of computer chips and the call that he didn’t make, the chance he refused.

No. The only way he’s going to get over this is by pressing that stupid green button, waiting for the phone to pick up, and just getting the fuck on with saying what he knows needs to be said.

He doesn’t take the time to redial the number, he knows all it will do is give him more time to think about what a bad idea this is. He presses the send button and it auto-dials the number again.

The long silence before the call connects just makes him remember how nauseated he is. He makes it through one ring. He only takes a breath because he doesn’t want to sound like a fucking pervert when she answers by breathing loudly into the phone.

"We're sorry; you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this recording in error, please check the number and try your call again. This is a recording."

There is nothing but a buzzing noise over the phone speaker and Bucky doesn’t feel anything anymore.


End file.
